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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

DC creates "temporary" cycletrack around construction

The 15th Street NW cycletrack was the first major cycletrack in the city, starting as a pilot.  While it's had some teething issues, it's now highly used.  When construction first started on the site of the old Washington Post building, on the 1100 block (between L and M Streets), I wasn't surprised that the cycletrack was blocked off because of the construction.

But I was over there yesterday and I was surprised to see that the lane configuration for the block had been changed--regularly, it has more lane capacity than traffic, which is why the cycletrack hasn't been an extraordinary impediment to motor vehicles--in a manner that shifted the cycletrack around the construction site, by taking away a traffic lane.

This is in keeping with the general discussion of the March piece, "Making cycling irresistible in DC 2.0 | Revisiting a post from 2008," which posits that the year by year improvements to bicycle infrastructure are significant.

That the city is maintaining bike infrastructure during a construction project, rather than letting it go away "temporarily" for the duration of the construction is a big deal.
Temporary shifting of 15th Street cycletrack around a construction zone, 1100 block
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:11 PM

    yes this is a big deal considering the prior history of complete and total apathy towards cycling the city has demonstrated. Perhaps this is a sign of better things to come or is it just a fluke?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard Layman12:59 PM

    I think it's an indicator of the change in the "equilibrium" of what is termed acceptable SOP.

    The bar is higher now. When they do these kinds of things, it's important to take notice and give credit.

    ReplyDelete